History of Nigeria

The history of Nigeria can be traced to the earliest inhabitants whose remains date from at least 13,000 BC through early civilizations such as the Nok culture which began around 1500 BC. Numerous ancient African civilizations settled in the region that is known today as Nigeria, such as the Kingdom of Nri,^[1] the Benin Empire,^[2] and the Oyo Empire.^[3] Islam reached Nigeria through the Bornu Empire between (1068 AD) and Hausa Kingdom during the 11th century,^[4][5][6][7] while Christianity came to Nigeria in the 15th century through Augustinian and Capuchin monks from Portugal to the Kingdom of Warri.^[8] The Songhai Empire also occupied part of the region.^[9] Through contact with Europeans, early harbour towns such as Calabar, Badagry^[10][11] and Bonny emerged along the coast after 1480, which did business in the transatlantic slave trade, among other things. Conflicts in the hinterland, such as the civil war in the Oyo Empire, meant that new enslaved people were constantly being "supplied".

After 1804, Usman dan Fodio unified an immense territory in his jihad against the superior but quarrelling Hausa states of the north, which was stabilised by his successors as the "Caliphate of Sokoto".

In its initial endeavour to stop the slave trade in West Africa, the United Kingdom gradually expanded its sphere of influence after 1851, starting from the tiny island of Lagos (3 km²) and the port city of Calabar. The British followed expansive trading companies such as the RNC and missionaries such as Mary Slessor, who advanced into the hinterland, preached and founded missionary schools, but also took action against local customs such as the religiously induced killing of twins or servants of deceased village elders and against the Trial by ordeal as a means of establishing the legal truth. At the Berlin Congo Conference in 1885, the European powers demarcated their spheres of interest in Africa without regard to ethnic or linguistic boundaries and without giving those affected a say. Thereafter, the British made increasing advances in the Niger region, which they had negotiated in Berlin, and ultimately defeated the Sokoto Caliphate. From 1903, Great Britain controlled almost the entire present-day territory of Nigeria, which was united under a single administration in 1914 (in 1919, a border strip of the former German colony of Cameroon was added to the territory of Nigeria).

Under the British colonial administration, purchasing cartels (of companies such as Unilever, Nestlé and Cadbury) kept the prices of cocoa, palm oil and peanuts artificially low, thereby damaging Nigerian agriculture, but on the other hand ports and an extensive railway network were also built. Newspapers, political parties, trade unions and higher education institutions were established - rather against the wishes of the colonial rulers in order to control the oversized colony. In the East African campaign of 1941, Nigerian regiments achieved the first major success against the Axis powers with the fastest military advance in history at the time.^[12] In 1956, oil fields were discovered in Nigeria. Since then, vandalism, oil theft and illegal, unprofessional refining by local residents have caused the contamination of the Niger Delta with crude and heavy oil, particularly around disused exploratory boreholes.^[13][14][15]

Nigeria became independent in 1960. From 1967 to 1970, the "Biafra War" raged in the south-east - one of the worst humanitarian disasters of modern times. After three decades mostly of increasingly restrictive military dictatorships, Nigeria became a democratic federal republic based on the US model in 1999. Quadrennial elections are criticised as "non-transparent".^[16] Nevertheless, changes of power in the presidential villa at Aso Rock took place peacefully in 2007, 2010, 2015 and 2023, making Nigeria one of the few stable democracies in the region - despite its shortcomings. The Boko Haram revolt of 2014, which received much attention in the West, fell apart due to infighting and the united approach of Nigeria and its neighbours. The spread of the Ebola epidemic to the slums of Lagos in the same year was prevented by professional crisis management.^[17] Recent years have seen the rise of the Nigerian music and film industry and a boom in software programming with five out of seven African tech unicorns.^[18] With large new refineries, the country attempts since January 2024 to process the extracted domestic crude oil on its own and in a professional manner in the future (meaning without heavy oil as a waste product).^[19][20]